Kotov Syndrome
by SkitzySyko
Summary: Me: n. Ellie, daughter of Fist 9 Chico Villanueva. You could call me a lot of other things: Survivor, Anarchist, Sarcastic, Trouble-Maker, Arsonist. This is my story... Someone else needs to know how horribly awry everything went. M for: L, V, dark themes
1. Chapter 1

While wallowing about my broken finger & knuckle and my inability to write much right now, I found this marvelous story I had written a year ago saved on my computer. I found it and fell in love with it again, so now I'm posting it - hopefully you guys will like it!

Synopsis: This is a story about Ellie, a woman who uses her connection to the Sons to get revenge. The Sons do not appear in the first chapter, which is essentially a prolouge, but obviously play a key role in this story. This is a very juicy story of revenge. It is also a very dark story, not for the faint of heart. Warnings for the story: Language, Violence, Sexual Situations (including rape), a bucket load of self-destructive qualitites and drug abuse. More warnings will probably pop up later.

As always, enjoy. :)

* * *

><p><em>Revenge is a confession of pain -<em> Old Latin Proverb

This story is mostly true. I say that only because I've never been one for telling stories, mostly because I can't trust my own memories. I suppose the drugs are to blame for that, but that's for another time, another chapter. You may find yourself asking why you should listen to my story, especially when there are others far more interesting than my story of a lonely woman on a quest for revenge. I could ramble off a list of hundreds of reasons why you should read my story and I could just as easily ramble off many reasons why you shouldn't listen to my story. It's not a pretty story, it's dirty and bloody. There is no happy ending, because this is the real world and in the real world there is never a happily ever after. Fairytales only exist between leather bound pages and this is real life where only fairytales of a Grimm origin exist.

But what I can tell you, dear reader, is that this story – my story, is something that you should learn from. Learn from my mistakes and for the love of God, don't follow in my footsteps. This story is a warning. A warning for all of you who think that revenge is the only way to calm a hostile soul.

This story is mostly true – but it's my story, as I remember every last painful detail. And it's a story I'd like to share with you.

But just remember my warning, keep it in the back of your mind as you listen to my tale and let it remind you that things seldom go according to plan. My story is not pretty. It is not about finding my one true love. It is not some heart-wrenching story about redemption. While there are moments I remember fondly, my story is about death and pain and misery.

This story is mostly true, but I need to tell it. Someone else needs to know how horribly awry everything went…

I never meant for any of this to happen. May God have mercy on my soul.

* * *

><p>Growing up in Charming was never something I wanted. But, hey, we don't exactly get to choose our origins. Origins choose us, that's just the way life goes. Spiderman never chose to get bitten by that spider. Daredevil never chose to run into a vat of toxic waste. Superman never chose to be sent from his home planet in an escape pod.<p>

But as much as I hated growing up in the small town, where as a teenager there was nothing else to do other than smoke weed, drink stolen 40's and have sex with any willing partner, I'm glad that I consider Charming my home town. After all, had I not spent the first eighteen years of my life trapped within the town limits, it would not have made me the woman I am today. It would not have afforded me the options I needed later in my life.

I left Charming the day of my eighteenth birthday and spent over a year gallivanting around the country, doing anything I wanted – sleeping in roach motels, screwing any guy I deemed half-fit and doing the finest drugs America has to offer. But that got old and I came back home at the age of twenty and decided that Charming was without a doubt my home. I got a job as a mechanic here in town, the only skill I just inherently had - and am damn good at. I was content with my life. It was simple and free of any stigma – everything that I desired.

I suppose you could say I had a fairly normal up-bringing. It was always me, my mother and my sister in our small ranch-style house on Blue Bird Street. Where my father was – I never knew. Never really cared to ask, either. My mother was enough and never actually knowing my father, I never knew what I was missing out on. My friends had fathers and I understood the concept but never understood the need for such a thing. When those very friends went through the divorce of their parents, like the majority of the population does nowadays, I never understood their turmoil. So what if your mother and your father would now be living in separate houses and you would have to split your weekends? At least you have a father.

My friends took this for spiteful apathy and I never cared to correct them. This pessimism I hold so dear has led to the crumbling of a lot of friendships, but I've never been one to care about other people's opinions of me. Let them think I'm a bitch, because they can't be true friends if they aren't willing to look past a few flaws. Besides, friends often and in the end always go, never leaving behind a single twinge of heartache in their wake. I've always been a self-sufficient, highly independent person. From a young age, Ma always told me that the only people you can count on in life is family and yourself. I don't think any philosopher has ever spoken truer words.

I'm starting to lose track here. I tend to do that from time to time.

I've always been a trouble maker. My mom said that as a young girl I would start fights with the boys in my class if they beat me in tag. Yeah, I know it's stupid, but I never made any claims that I was a scholar. I just didn't like to lose and the fact that they were boys never fazed me – a trait that carried on throughout my adult life. I always loved to prove that as a woman I could do anything the boys could do – most of the time I could do the same things better. I've always had a need to prove myself. Not to anyone in particular - just to the world in general.

Something about pushing boundaries, getting into fights for the hell of it and bringing mayhem just gives me an indescribable glee, a mischievous satisfaction that makes me happy to the core. I once sped past a cop at a buck-fifty just to see if he would really pull me over – which he did. I got a hefty speeding ticket and a court appearance notice, but it was worth it. I gave that cop a damn good chase and the surprise on his face when he saw that I was a chick was fucking priceless.

Here I go again, loosing track….

What I'm trying to say is, I've always had a knack for trouble. Mom always liked to say that trouble has a GPS lock on me. I can't say that she was wrong, just a little mistaken in her wording. I always went looking for trouble. It never had to find me.

I was fine with this, rather I found happiness in my ability to hold my own and revel in chaos. I loved trouble and trouble loved me.

_That is_ until one night when trouble followed me home. And in this situation trouble is a 5'11 man named Buck who smelt of Tennessee whiskey and had a love for flannel shirts with the sleeves cut off.

Now men, especially drunk men with the IQ of a walnut who are surrounded by equally drunk men with even lower IQ's, don't like losing anything to a girl. Even if that thing is a harmless game of pool – which I admit, I hustled them at. It's how I pay for my narcotic habits, and hustling is something I'm damn good at.

It doesn't help that I gloated my fair amount, laughing in their faces that the dumb rednecks couldn't even win against a girl who has played pool "once before" in her entire 22 years on Earth. Like I said, I have a knack for trouble.

It was the dead middle of a warm April night when I awoke to the sound of breaking glass coming from the living room. I've always been a light sleeper and usually that certain trait of mine pissed me off. But on this particular night, I was grateful to be awoken from my deep slumber. I took the aluminum baseball bat that I keep beside my bed and ventured out to find the intruder. I passed by my little sisters bedroom, who was also awoken by the sound, and told her to lock her door and barricade it with her dresser until I gave the all-clear. Frightened, she obliged – knowing that I would do anything in my power to protect her just like any time before. I broke a kid's arm for pushing her off her bike once.

My mother's bedroom is at the end of the hall, and I don't take the time to peek inside. She's a heavy sleeper, a direct result of the numerous pills she takes every night to keep her mental disorders in check. It would take a bomb bigger than the one dropped on Hiroshima to wake her. So I leave her be, knowing that I can easily handle some knuckle head who thinks that just because there's a brand new Mustang in the car park that we must have money – which we don't.

Passing into the living room with my bat held high, I was startled to find not one, but three intruders. They're the drunk rednecks from the bar. The drunk rednecks that I had beat in pool. The drunk rednecks that I had taken $400 dollars from, laughing the entire time that silly little boys don't know a damn thing about anything.

I might have been laughing then, but I most certainly am not laughing now. They have guns and knives – one even had a crowbar. They have that look in their eyes, the look of fiery determination and pure malicious intent. It's a look I've seen before. It's a look I dread.

"I already called the cops, now get the fuck out of my house!" I shout. It is a lie, of course, because I would _never _call the cops - I fucking hate pigs. But these rednecks don't know that.

Or so I thought.

"There's no way she called the cops – right? You said it yourself, Buck – this bitch would never get the pigs involved!" A man hidden from my view shrieks with panic.

"Calm the fuck down. There ain't no way she called the cops." Buck growls. I don't know these men aside from our encounter at a bar in Lodi tonight. Yet, they apparently know me - or they know of me through my reputation. In my twenty-two years I've built quite the stalwart reputation for myself and it always seemed like a good thing. Locals knows not to mess with Ellie because she'll break your nose without any hesitations. Everyone knows not to mess with Amber, because her big sister is Ellie and Ellie will cut your balls off for messing with Amber. Everyone knows that you leave Ellie alone and I always held that in high regard. I was always so proud of my tough reputation.

Until now. Because if they thought I was some weak bitch, they would not think twice about me stating I've called the authorities.

With no words spoken, the tallest of the group – Buck, approaches me, coming dangerously close to invading the personal space which I am highly protective of. I swing the bat with perfect force. Three years on my high schools co-ed baseball team and I've still got the goods.

He catches the bat mid-strike with his large mitts, easily wrenching it from my grasp. So I spit in his face, a large wad of phlegm from deep within my lungs, speckled with black bits from smoking too much, splatters on his left cheek. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

But it obviously wasn't.

Quickly taking the bat and getting into his own less than perfect posture, Buck swings at me – hitting me in the ribs and knocking me onto the ground. As I gasp for breath, wrapping a protective arm over my throbbing core, I look up from the ground at the crowd in my living room.

They are here for something far more sinister than I want to envision. It's clearly evident in their hostile postures.

"AMBER – RUN!" I shout, hoping to hell that my sister is smart enough to crawl out her bedroom window and run to safety.

"Go get her!" Buck orders one of the goons with a finger thrust towards the bedrooms at the back of the house. The nameless goon runs past me and I stick out an arm, wrapping it around his ankle, pulling up and forcing him to harshly come face-to-face with the unforgiving tile flooring. His nose crunches against the hard tile, blood gushing from his nostrils. He moans in pain, shouting obscenities about a broken nose.

What a pussy. I've broken my nose twice and never have I cried in pain like that.

I feel a hard kick delivered to my ribs that steals my breath and makes me cough up blood, the vile metallic taste of blood filling my mouth to the brim. I spit out the extra onto the floor but quickly my mouth refills. Through the blurry curtain of blonde hair that has fallen over my face, I stare up at Buck with my green eyes fierily narrowed with determination not let this escalate any further.

"You leave her the fuck out of this! If you want your god damn money, you can have it!" I shout, but my words are wheezy and fall short of being menacing.

Buck bends down on one knee, coming closer to my level. He firmly grabs a large portion of my hair and pulls my head up, bringing me so close that our noses are on the verge of caressing. I wince against the pain of having my hair pulled.

"This isn't about the money." He growls. All I can smell is the liquor on his breath. All I can see is his dilated pupils, shining in the green glow from the clock on the stove. By my vast knowledge of drugs, I'd be willing to bet its crystal he's on – a potent poison that is too easily made and too easily sold. It's the one thing I would never touch because I know how much it changes people. I know how it instills its abusers with fire and brimstone straight from Hell.

Buck pulls me straight up by my long hair, which I try and grab the base of to lessen the pain but with his free hand – the one still holding the bat –_ my_ bat, he swings hard at my left arm. I hear the snap of bone and feel the brake shiver up my shoulder and down my spine. Through the pain, a sinking feeling develops in the pit of my stomach. An omen that tonight is not going to end well.

I hear a commotion from the back of the house, the sound of wood-splitting as a door is busted in – I hear Amber scream. Panic grips my pain-riddled chest tight.

"YOU FUCKING LET HER GO!" I scream, thrashing against Buck who holds me in an unmovable position pressed against his body. I can feel his dense muscles against my flesh, barley covered by my unfortunate choice of sleep ware – nothing more than a black bra and cotton panties.

I can feel his hard intentions against my lower back.

I bring up my leg and harshly connect my foot with his knee with bone snapping force, sending him off balance and crumbling to the floor. I bolt to escape – to collect my sister and run like hell. My mother can take care of herself – she sleeps with a gun under her pillow (an old habit from growing up in Hell's Kitchen).

Buck is not nearly as incapacitated as I originally thought – he grabs my leg as I run, quickly picking me up and throwing me head-first against the floor. I feel my head first bounce of the wall and then crack against the tile. I feel warm blood begin to run through my hair and onto the floor.

I feel myself fading quickly.

And just before my world completely dissipates to nothingness, I hear Amber's blood curdling scream echo throughout the house.

I wish I died right then, no matter how cowardly that sounds.

Death is so much more preferable than the truth that I awoke to discover.

* * *

><p>A slap against my face is what wakes me up. It's stone-hard and leaves behind a severe stinging, but it's nothing compared to the pain in my arm and in my side that provides a sharp jolt every few seconds.<p>

My eyes flutter open slowly and I instantly panic as I see Buck's fat face directly over mine.

"You're going to watch this." He growls.

His face, a fleshy oval riddled with acne scars is scrunched up with disdain but his eyes twinkle with delight. It instills more fear in me than I ever thought I'd experience. One of his large hands, smelling of nicotine and dirt, wrap around my jaw, forcing my head to turn and see what's next to me.

Amber, gratefully unconscious with a bit of blood trailing down the side of her temple from a strike to the head, is tied down to her twin-sized bed – her arms tied with rope to the ends of the headboard and her feat tied with the same rope to the ends of the foot board. Her innocent underwear, white cotton briefs, are torn at the sides and lay in a puddle on the floor. Her night shirt is ripped open, revealing her supple eighteen year old breasts. I noticed a piercing in the left nipple, and for a brief moment I forget the situation we're in and wonder why she never told me she got her nipple pierced. We are a close as could be and she normally tells me everything. Quickly, however, it sinks in that she is exposed in her entirety, her milky white skin giving off a faint glow from the moonlight that streams in through the open window.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out what's about to happen.

"NO! Don't you fucking dare – I'll fucking kill you!" I shout, but my words are muffled because Buck's hand still wraps around my jaw, smushing my cheeks together.

The threat must get across through, because he punches me hard in the ribs – exactly where the bat had struck earlier. My body jerks from the pain and I struggle to breathe through it. My ribs are without a doubt broken but in this moment I could not care less. I try to move my arm so I can swing at the buffoon over me, but my arm does not move. Frantically I look around and much to my dismay, I find that I am in a situation identical to Amber's.

My arms and legs are tied down, the knots so tight that I cannot feel either of my hands or my feet. My bra and panties are missing, leaving me completely exposed. The cool breeze from the open window blows past my bare breasts, sending a chill throughout my whole body. My skin, riddled with scars and random tattoos does not glow in the way Amber's untainted flesh does. Rather, my tanned skin seems exponentially darker in the moonlight. Almost like I hail from Italian or Hispanic descent, far my truthful displayed Scandinavian and Germanic roots. We have different fathers – neither of us have ever met our sperm donors, but that does not make her any less my sister.

That does not make me any less determined to save her innocence.

Continuing to gather my surroundings, I notice the two other men are in the room as well. The one with the crow bar stands by the door, holding the improvisational weapon horizontal with both hands and a wary look on his narrow face. The other stands by the window, picking dirt out from under his grease stained nails with his large switchblade, appearing rather indifferent about this devious situation. My mother is thankfully absent from this equation. Part of me hopes she was at least able to get to safety. Another part of me hopes that she is on the other side of the closed bedroom door with her gun, ready to save her daughters.

But I'm a pessimist. Always have been and I predict I always will be. She's probably tied up to. Or worse – dead. But I refuse to dwell on that for too long. I just can't imagine my mother in a situation worse than this.

Whimpering, I look into Buck's ominous brown eyes and ask, "Why are you doing this?"

Buck leans in closer, his thin lips twisting into a vicious snarl, "Because I want to."

"_Please,_ I'll do anything… Just don't hurt her. _Please!" _ I beg, tears down streaming freely from my sage green eyes and staining my cheeks.

Buck laughs. The bastard actually laughs.

He leans in close, his lips touching my 1-inch gauged ears, "I'm going to fuck her tight pussy, while you watch. And then I'm going to slit that pretty little throat of hers while you watch her bleed out. And _then,_ it's your turn… Only you'll be begging for death after what I have planned for you." He runs a calloused finger down the side of my face, trailing all the way down to my right breast where he harshly gropes the mound – painfully pinching my nipple between two fingers.

"_Please… _I swear, just… Just do whatever you want to me, but let her go!" I beg.

I'm crying ferociously now, tears falling faster than the seconds that painfully tick by. My lower lip quivers and my heart thumps against my broken ribs.

I look into his eyes, pleading with every ounce of strength I have for him to accept my offer.

But it's clear that he has his mind set on doing this unforgivable deed.

A vicious cross between a snarl and a smirk twists his face, "You're going to watch every fucking second of this… - Jake, make sure this bitch sees everything."

The man by the window, the one with the ratty green baseball cap who had been cleaning his nails look up. I can't make out his face, he is obscured by shadows, but I can see him nod in agreement. He walks over and clamps both of his hands against the side of my face, forcing me to turn in the direction of Amber. He says nothing, but I can smell the familiar odour of motor grease and oil on his hands.

Buck walks across the room. I can hear the clinking of his metal belt buckle as he undoes his pants.

"NO!" I shout, thrashing more against my bindings and the hands against my temples. This shout of mine is enough to startle Amber awake. With wide eyes, she looks around and begins to pull against her ties. But it does no good.

"Ellie!" She yelps, looking briefly at the approaching man before turning to me, terror widening her golden eyes to doll porportions.

Buck's pants fall by his ankles.

"Just look at me, Amber. It will all be over soon." I try to hold back my cries – try to show her strength and starve away her fear. However, she can clearly see how equally terrified I am. She can see the way my elongated face is clearly etched with panic. Amber begins to sob hysterically, shouting protests as Buck gets on top of her.

"Look at me!" I shout with force. Tears streaming down the supple cheeks on her heart-shaped face and breathing ragged through her petite nose, she looks at me.

Despite sobbing violently, I try to sound as comforting as possible, "It'll all be okay. Just go somewhere else and it will all be okay."

She nods slowly and shakily, clenched lips quivering as she tries to hold back her sobs.

Buck gets into position, his large erect penis in line to enter her virgin hole.

"Remember that trip we made to the Grand Canyon? Go there." I coo to try and comfort her. Amber nods again, but it's barely enough of a motion to be perceived. Her eyes squeeze shut, a waterfall of tears escaping and drenching her face and the lavender bed sheets beneath her.

"It'll all be okay."

My comforting words are completely hidden under the sickening scream that flies deep from Amber's throat as Buck quickly thrusts into her with one hard motion.

I never look away. I keep my green eyes on Amber's golden brown eyes, showing her that we're in this together and that we will somehow make it through this.

Buck's rape of Amber in reality does not last long, a grand total of five minutes and thirty-seven seconds, but it seems like he thrust into her for seven years while I could do nothing but watch and pitifully try to comfort my young sister – locking eyes with her as we both try to tune out Buck's feral grunts.

Buck pushes himself up off of her. Amber's sobs have dulled to an inaudible level, but it's clear that she's still crying from the tears drenching her and her sheets and the look of sheer desperation on her heart-shaped face.

"It's okay." I mouth, unable to speak. Amber doesn't respond, too shocked to do anything other than whimper.

I see Buck reach down and grab something off the floor. I see a metallic glisten in the moonlight.

I see what's coming and know I can't stop it.

"Look at me and don't you dare look away. I love you, Amber! I LOVE YOU!" I shout just before Buck takes his blade and slashes it across her throat. Instantly, blood spurts up onto the ceiling and flows from the incision, drenching Buck with arterial spray and covering Amber's nude body in crimson that drips down onto the bed, gradually cascasing onto the dirty beige carpet. Amber gasps once, but her terrified eyes never leave mine.

"It'll all be alright." I mouth.

She tries to nod but she can't.

And then it's over. It's all over so quickly.

I am witness to the luster in her eyes extinguishing like a snuffed flame. I sat back helplessly as she was murdered.

"_No!"_ I cry, shouting and whimpering all at once as more tears cascade down my already soaked and sticky cheeks.

Her dead eyes stare at me, asking why I didn't save her – asking why everything didn't turn out to be okay like I swore.

The overwhelming sorrow over her death is quickly washed away by a blinding rage that hastens my breath and stops my tears.

Sleek nose flaring with rage, I look over at Buck – now drenched in Amber's warm blood, "You motherfucker! I'll fucking kill you!" I scream so loud that the corners of my mouth split and bleed.

Buck says nothing – his sinister smirk says it all as he saunters over to me.

I'm next.

He gets on top of me, the old mattress beneath me buckling under his substantial weight. He nudges my legs open wider with his knees and lines up his entry.

His penetration is quick. Even though I am far from a virgin the rough thrusting of his penis entering me, burying so deep that he hits against my pelvic bone sends waves of pain radiating throughout my entire body.

But I don't whimper.

I don't cry.

I refuse to give him that satisfaction.

Instead, I stare him dead on – my jaw clenched so tight that my teeth ache and a vein in my head pulsates. I swear right then and there that even if it's the last thing I do, I will make every last motherfucker involved die excruciating deaths.

He thrusts and grunts, his fat face covered with Amber's blood never once leaving my vision. It is an image that will forever be burned into my mind. It is an image that will fuel the unforgiving rage deep inside me.

Every hurtful penetration only solidifies my desire to slaughter.

When he's finally done, which takes much long than with Amber – twenty minutes that felt like a century, he bends over and presses the long blade against my throat. His upper lip snarls as he presses the blade deeper - though not hard enough to cut.

He's about to say something.

Suddenly, I can hear a multitude of wailing police sirens off in the distance, speeding down the road.

And so can Buck and his two goons.

In a rush to escape before he is caught, Buck hastily drags the blade over my throat to finish the job. I can feel the razor sharp edge slice through my skin, I can feel warm blood begin to flow from my neck down onto my chest and pool all around me.

He quickly dismounts me and follows the path of his goons – quickly jumping through the bedroom window and running off into the night.

I bring my chin to my chest, desperately trying to apply the only pressure I can to slow the fast bleed.

I hear my front door being broken down, the horrible sound of wood splintering exactly as it sounded when Amber's door was broken down.

"HELP!" I scream, but there is no sound.

My head gets fuzzy, consciousness slowly slipping from my grasp like sand slowly falling from my fingers. I breathe deep, but no matter how deep I breath the severe lightheadedness I am stricken with will not cease.

I'm going to die.

The last thing I see before I completely pass out is the quick burst of light from a flashlight entering Amber's bedroom, finding the two mutilated young females inside.

Even in my unconscious, I swear that vengeance will be mine. Even if I have to come back from the dead and haunt the despicable men who raped and killed us – I vow that they will pay.

In many ways, I think that desire for vengeance is what kept me alive.

That was the worst night of my entire life, a night I will never be able to forget...

This is where my story truly begins. So, dear reader, if you have the nerve, read on.

It only gets better from here.

* * *

><p>Please review and let me know what you think. :)<p> 


	2. Chapter 2

It has hit me that the switching between past and present tense could be confusing, so I'll post this as a reminder that this is written sort of like a memoire - this is Ellie writing about what happened. If it is confusing, please just let me know and I'll be sure to stick to one tense at all times.

Enjoy ;)

* * *

><p>A neighbour called the cops after hearing my screams. The police found me naked, abused and half-dead, still tied to the extra twin bed in Amber's room. They quickly got me to the hospital - apparently the slice Buck delivered to my jugular was not nearly as severe as the blood loss led on. They found Amber tied to her bed but she was already dead, naked body bathed in red. I prefer not to dwell on that part.<p>

They found my mother still lying in her bed with a knife buried in her skull. They say she never saw it coming, that she died in her sleep. I guess I'm thankful for that small miracle. She never knew what happened. She never knew the horror her daughters lived. Or rather – she doesn't know that her daughters were brutally raped and then one of them was slaughtered while the other, myself, was left to suffer on with her entire family gone.

I say these things but I don't know if they're all true. It's just what someone told me.

Just like they said I'm lucky to be alive. That I should buy a lottery ticket. Can you fucking believe that? The stupid over-paid dicks in white coats actually told me that I should buy a lottery ticket. I looked the mother fucker right in the eye and asked how having my entire family killed could be lucky?

He didn't know what to say.

That much I know for sure...

I didn't really believe it, that I was still alive. I _should _have died. Now, I'm not ungrateful that I survived – my survival means I can vindicate the repulsive actions of that night, I'm just torn. Part of me wishes I didn't have to live on without them – wondering why it was _me_, the tainted eldest sister, who survived when Amber had so much more going for her. She just recieved an acceptance letter from Stanford. She was so happy...

The doctors called it survivor's guilt.

I call it being human.

News of the late night attack spread fast like wildfire through Charming, spread in hushed whispers of gossip. Everyone knew what happened. Everyone knew about poor, poor, Ellie and how she got her throat slit but just not deep enough to kill her. Everyone knew about the mini-massacre. _Everyone knew_. That's something that I couldn't handle. Considering I'm a rather private person, I didn't like knowing that everyone _and their mother_ knew about the worst night of my life. Some things are just meant to be personal. Some things aren't made to be put on display, but yet I was.

Looking back now, I think that bothered me more than anything else – knowing that _everyone _knew. That and the stares I later got on the streets, but you'll learn about that soon enough.

I was barely conscious when I first noticed the shadow of a leather-clad outlaw pacing outside my door in the ICU unit.

I don't know why it surprised me, but it did. However, it also filled me with something else. Some indescribable emotion akin to the feeling of security but more closely related to relief. I knew right then and there that they would help me. I knew right then in there, in-between consciousness and nothingness, that the Sons of Anarchy would help me obtain the vindication I yearned for. After all, no one fucks with SAMCRO – or it's extended family of which I am a part of. But more on that later.

I suppose now that I look back at that moment, I also knew right then and there that this wasn't going to be simple. It was going to be messy and bloody.

Of course, hindsight is always 20/20, filled with self-fulfilling prophecies and future knowledge. But I swear, I felt something else in my stomach that day as I lay in the uncomfortable hospital bed – drifting in and out.

I _swear _I felt dread, a deep knowing that this was going to end badly.

Or maybe it was just a craving for a cigarette. God knows at that point it had been more than twenty-four hours since my last one.

I suppose now that I've delayed it long enough, I should explain my connection to the Sons of Anarchy. Growing up in Charming, I've always been exposed to them and their ways. Having the knack for trouble that I do, I was always drawn to them and their mysterious ways. Having the need for mayhem and the disdain for the ordinary that I do, it was inevitable that I would wind up affiliated with them.

I ended up as mechanic for Teller-Morrow Automotive. Aside from Gemma, the office troll – _err_, Queen, I'm the only female on their payroll. But my bond with them goes much, much deeper. Blood deep.

Remember how I said I had never met my father – that I never bothered to even ask who he was?

That was all truth.

I never once said that I didn't know who my father was, however.

I know who my father is – or rather, I was told who he was shortly after I started working at Teller-Morrow, not too long after Clay remarked how good I was with both bikes and autos. According to them, my father was Chico Villanueva, a first 9 member of SAMCRO. From what I hear, despite the fact I look nothing like him, we're exactly the same. I guess all those times my mother yelled a hasty "you're just like your father!" at me every time I came home high or got arrested make sense.

Chico was a daredevil. He liked to live fast and on the edge, reveling in mayhem that was magnetized to him. He was a god damn good mechanic, apparently able to take a bike completely apart in under an hour. Just in case you don't know, that's fucking impressive.

I guess you could say trouble and a talent for all things wheeled is in my DNA.

Chico and my mother were close – due to get engaged when my mother announced she was pregnant with me. Unfortunately, Chico died three months before I was born. They say that he took too much speed in his youth and died at 32 while working on John Teller's precious Harley in the garage. They say that he died doing what he loved.

I can't necessarily say I doubt his death, because if we are so much alike he definitely had a drug problem, but what I can say is this: I don't trust anything Clay Morrow tells me.

Never have, never will.

From what else I hear, after Chico died my mother wanted nothing to do with club. She insisted that she raise me away from everything that comes along with club life: disorder, uncertainty, imperfection, chaos - all things that I love.

Go figure that I ran right to it...

Her decision to sever ties with the club, especially when being a daughter of the first 9 is apparently a big deal – is what deepens the distrust I have over Chico's supposed natural death. His heart just gave out while he was working on a bike?

C'mon.

That sounds a little fishy no matter how you spin it.

I'm losing track, aren't I?

Right, well – what I was trying to say is that the Sons were there for me after the vicious incident that robbed me of my family and damaged me forever more.

If anything, above all else, I have only good things to say about that. They take care of their own – or in my case, they help their own take care of themselves.

I have nothing more to say about that.

* * *

><p>Most of my time in the hospital, recovering from the near-lethal slice to my neck, is a blur of sights and sounds – but mostly what is left behind are feelings. Feelings with no particular memory tied to them, coming and going, always leaving behind a dizzying rush of confusion. Feelings that prove to linger, even to this very day as I sit here typing away on the dilapidated PC, practicallly a relic, that hums loudly.<p>

Despair.

Anguish.

Sorrow.

Anger.

Regret.

Remorse.

And finally, numbness came. It washed over me the day before I was due to be released like a baptismal tsunami.

I felt calm.

Spending just shy of a month in a private hospital room, I had a lot of time to think and process the sinister events that landed me in the hospital – the sinister events that left a five-inch gash on my neck and a hole in my soul. At first I thought it was too much time, too much of me being alone and too much of me being allowed to wallow. I would press the button on my Morphine drip repeatedly until the machine sounded off a loud beep of denial. This beep meant that I had reached my maximum allotment of pain medicine. And always after this beep, I would colourfully curse the machine to hell and back with more obscenities than I even knew I held in my verbal repetoire. What did its circuitry know of pain? How could it be so sure I wasn't hurting?

Fucking machine doesn't know a god damn thing.

I had the occasional visitor. Some friends came but they never stayed long. I could almost pin-point exactly when they would create some obviously fake excuse as to why they had to go, I could see the unease grow in their emotives. Work. Errands to run. Someone to pick up. Whatever the pathetic excuse, no one stayed more than twenty minutes. Except for the Sons – except for my co-workers from Teller-Morrow, my extended family. One of them at all times stationed outside my door, just to make sure no one came back to finish the job. One of them almost always sitting in the undoubtedly uncomfortable plastic chair in the corner of my room.

Come to think of it, maybe that's why everyone else left so quickly. But that's not important. What's really important is April 27th – a day remembered by anguish. April 27th was the day after I woke up when I made my demand for retaliation. It was the day I demanded the blood of the men who destroyed my life.

Phil was outside my room, I could see the shadow of his imposing profile through the thin window in the door. Jax and Opie stood beside by bed. Opie loomed over Jax – it never fails to surprise me just how freakin' tall that man is. Or how sexy. If he weren't a married man and if I weren't "off-limits", I would totally jump his bones.

Not that you needed to know that. What you do, however, need to know is that on that day, Opie looked me in the eyes while Jax couldn't look away from the bandage over my neck with bits of crimson seeping through. But Jax has always been about as discrete as a neon sign.

"The club is here for you – anything you need." Jax says, eyes tearing away from my neck for only a split second.

I didn't need a single second to think. I already know what I need. And I think so did Jax and Opie. No matter what I said, the end result was always going to be the same.

"The only thing I want," I say, my raspy voice quivering with uncontrollable rage, "Is for the fuckers who did this to pay," both Jax and Opie nod, but I am far from done, "I want them to feel every single god damn thing that Amber and I felt. I want them to fucking suffer and I want them to _pray_ for death-" The machine monitoring my heart beat next to me gets louder and faster as my blood pressure rises, my heart beginning to race. The noise momentarily interrupts me, but I quickly tell the machine to go fuck itself and begin again, "I want them to die the most excruciating death imaginable…." I take a long pause, breathing deep, "And I want to be the one to do it. I want to do it all." I finish with a harsh snal upon my lips.

Jax and Opie exchanged a look. A telepathic conversation is held between the life-long friends in a matter of seconds.

And then Jax nods, "We can do that."

There's no hiding the mischevious smirk tugging at the corner his lips.

I never talked about what happened, not to them – not even to the police. Not that I really needed to, though. The vicious attack was all over the news, garnering both local and national attention.

I never told them about the rapes, though. I never told anyone. Never have. I'm not ashamed of it… It's just…. It's done with, so there's no use talking about it. What's done is done. Sometimes the past is best left there – in the past. No use in bringing it to the present.

I'm starting to lose track again, repeating myself.

What I'm trying to say is they understood my need for revenge.

They understood that it was the only thing I had left.

* * *

><p>All the information about Chico Vallanueva is true, essentially copied directly from my SOA iPhone app.<p>

Please review. :)


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: I really don't want to nag or sound ungrateful, but the serious lack of reviews for this is a wicked bummer (major thank yous to those of you who have, however). Even if it's one word, reviews to me are what make this writing worth while. So please, just write me a quick review, I need to know that this story is worth posting.

This chapter is dark, chalk-full of raw emotions and gets graphic with hard drug use in the last section.

* * *

><p>I was temporarily released from the hospital to attend the dual funeral of my mother and my sister. I don't remember it at all, except for the smell of lillies in the spring air that made me sneeze because I'm incredibly allergic to that particular flower. I think that's probably for the best though. It must have been a despair day because from what people tell me I was almost catatonic during the whole thing. Apparently I never said a word.<p>

The day I was discharged from the hospital is a day I both want desperatly to forget but also remember fondly. It started my healing with heart-felt words from one of my favourite Sons: Chibs.

Chibs waited outside my room while I changed in the bathroom attached to my private room from the hospital gown into street clothes that were collected for me. The bathroom is small, cramped with a large bathtub/shower combination; raised toilet and a square porcelain pedestal sink with a small stainless-steal shelf between it and the tilted mirror. The room smells like bleach and everything is white, much like everything else at St. Joseph's. Standing in the middle of the bathroom I'm almost overwhelmed by a sudden feeling of claustrophobia despite the fact I left the heavy door open. With my broken and slowly healing ribs paired with my broken arm strangled by a hard bright purple cast over the entire limb it took me more than thirty minutes to get into the baby blue tank top and a pair of bleached boot-cut jeans that smelled like home. Five minutes of that I sat on the thin edge of the tub, inhaling the comforting familiar scent of warm vanilla, lavender and tobacco – the smell of my laundry detergent and house. Three minutes of that I spent figuring out how to get my bra on with only one arm before deciding to forgo wearing the brazier all together, relying on the built in bra the tank top has. My breasts are a B-cup, shapely and perky enough that I can thankfully get away with that. Two minutes of that was spent carefully tugging on the soft cotton shirt – my ribs loudly objecting the action. I had to take a break halfway in between. My jeans took one minute just because I had to figure out how to pull up the zipper and button them with one hand. I brushed out my shoulder length dirty ash blonde hair with long layers and wispy side-swept bangs that almost cover my left eye – I needed a trim but that was a priority so low on my to-do list it barely registered. I tried putting my thick tresses up into a pony-tail, my preferred hair style, but I quickly discovered that was impossible in my condition, leaving my frustration growing to an explosive level. I spent five minutes applying a minimum amount of make-up: some concealer to hide the dark bags under my large, round and slightly wide-set sage green eyes; some apricot blush to my high cheek bones to make me look a little less dead; some mascara to my long eyelashes and a quick sweep of dark brown eyeliner that slightly flares out on the end.

The rest of those thirty minutes was spent staring at the healing gash over my throat. The stitches in the five-inch slice have already been removed and according to the doctors, it's healing nicely. I think they were just lying to make me feel better because it still looks nasty as hell. The wound is unbearably tender and sore as I touch it. The damaged skin is jagged, starting to pucker together as thick scar tissue builds. They say the scar will be far from clean-cut (the doctor didn't even realize how much of a hurtful pun his words were. Asshole.) and I don't disagree. I try not to look at it but its impossibly hard not to. It's so… obvious, for the lack of a better word. The shocking pale pink scar tissue stands out in sharp contrast against my lightly tanned skin. Of course, it doesn't help that it still hurts like a bitch and even though my broken arm and ribs throb, that pain is nothing compared to the one that radiates down to my shoulder blades.

Why do they even put mirrors in hospital bathrooms? Do they honestly think that people want to see how horribly disfigured they look?

I try not to touch it so it doesn't get further irritated than it already is but I can't contain the urge to feel it for the billionth time. I run a tender finger over its length repeatedly, feeling the bumps left behind by the stitches removed earlier today and the pot-hole esque dimples of the puckered scar tissue.

I suppose the reality of everything hasn't sunk in yet. Even looking at my neck and feeling the bumps beneath my fingers I still can't believe it's there. I still can't believe I survived my throat being slit. One would assume that an injury such as that is fatal without exception. Had Buck not been in a rush, had he not been careless with his cutting and applied as much ferocious pressure as he did with Amber, I would be dead.

I guess that's where the lottery ticket comment came from. I survived the unsurvivable and that's fucking lucky as shit. For a moment I think that maybe I will pick up a lottery ticket on my way home.

Home…. Chibs, who was the one to pick up clean clothes for me and the one to provide transportation back to my home, says that the house looks good. According to him all the guys replaced the shattered front window, though it is more likely that Phil and Eric installed a new window pane while everyone else stood around drinking beer. A special crime scene cleaning unit removed any trace of Amber and my mother's lost life. Gemma and Tara went over and cleaned up everything else.

Regardless of how thorough anyone was with erasing the mess, I doubt it will make a difference. There's no amount of bleach or hours of sweeping and cleaning in the world that can clean away the bloody vision of my sister's murder that is seared into my memory. I keep having vivid nightmares about what happened that leave me sweaty and anxious. I haven't told the doctors that, though. I don't want to give them any more evidence that I need to see some quack-job head shrinker.

I don't really want to go home but I don't have a choice. I'm not ready to go back and be in an empty house; I'm not ready to be back in the very spot where I saw Amber murdered; I'm not ready to see the spot where I was raped and almost murdered; I'm not ready to walk by my mother's room and deal with the damn regret that I never bothered to wake her.

I wish I had somewhere else to go. I did actually try calling my closet friend outside of T-M, Ben, my best friend since kindergarten, to see if I could stay with him but my call went to voicemail just like the past ten times this month I have tried to contact him. I didn't bother to leave a message this time, another message among my seven that have remained ignored. He came to see me with a bouquet of colourful daisies a few days after the hospital allowed me to have visitors and I haven't heard from him since. Bastard won't even return my phone calls. He was always someone I thought would be my friend forever. I always thought he was someone I could count on. I so wrongly assumed he would always be there for me.

Well, fuck him. Fuck him and his stupid fucking unknown problem with me now that I'm irrevocably damaged both physically and mentally.

Fuck. Him. Straight. To. Hell.

What happened on that inauspicious night of blood shed drastically changed me. I no longer feel the same as I did. I was just a pessimist then, but I'm a lethal nihlist now. I suppose it was stupid of me to assume going through what I did wouldn't affect me so severely. I've never had pristine virgin skin. I have gathered scars, some small and barely noticeable and some not, from fights and falls as well as nine tattoos – all of them black and white and each piece of ink I consider a work of art, my skin the canvas. The tattoos obviously don't bother me, I did want them after all, but none of my scars bother me either.

But this one, this ghastly jagged scar across my neck is different. I fucking hate it.

It's nothing but an agonizing reminder that I can't stop looking at.

Chibs quietly walks into the room, his heavy boots barely making any noise at all as he takes to leaning against the open door jam with his shoulder, arms crosses over his chest and ankles crossed over themselves. His sleek black sunglasses are pushed high up on his faintly wrinkled forehead, keeping his unwashed and unkempt shaggy brown hair out of his face – exposing the wisps of grey around his temples.

I only see him out of the corner of my eye and quickly turn my back to him, hastily reaching for the newly purchased thin white cotton scarf on the shelf above the sink. I manage to wrap it twice around my neck and let the rest gather and drape down to my chest before he says anything.

I feel ashamed to admit it, but I'm not ready to let anyone else see my healing injury – my extensive damage. Especially in the company of Chibs whom I hold in high regard.

He clears his throat before speaking, "You ready to go, sweetheart?"

I turn around, tightening the scarf and making sure it fully covers my neck as I do so.

"Yeah." My voice is still raspy and dry. While the slit Buck put in my throat was not deep enough to sever my vocal chords the trauma was still enough to damage them. The doctors say this drastic change in my once light, airy voice will be permanent. And they were right, it never returned to normal. I'm stuck sounding like an old maid who smoked so much in her life that she single handedly kept Marlboro in business.

Chibs' brown eyes instantly fall to my neck when I face him. His gradually aging tanned face pulls back, a vexing wrinkle of concerned woe appearing on his forhead. Sympathy darkens his eyes, and that makes me uneasy. By trying to disguise my damage I unintentionally prove just how upsett I am.

"You don't have to hide that," He points a glove covered finger to my throat, "_Especially _around me." His brogue melts his fondly comforting words together.

Now as he looks at my covered neck, I look at his old Glasgow smile – the slightly faded scars that spread out from the corners of his thinning lips marked by crinkles from smoking for the majority of his life. But what he doesn't understand is that his scars work for him. They give him a unique intimidation factor, they give him an air of power and mystery.

But what I just then realize, now that I've been through a similar situation, is that his harrowing facial scars also put on display an agonizing affliction. Just like me, everytime he looks in the mirror he's reminded of what Jimmy O did and all the distressing thoughts and emotions that come along with that.

"Yeah… well…" I nervously start, not knowing in the slightest how to explain the crippling unease I feel.

Chibs stops me, holding up a flattened hand and nodding once in the subtlest of ways, "I get it."

I release a deep, sad sigh that heaves my chest low. I look down at the floor, focusing on the grey and black speckles in the white linoleum. I nervously rub the back of my neck with my suddenly sweaty right hand.

"I can't stand it. I can't stand knowing that everyone will know what I've been through." I say, raspy voice crackling with emotions I try to hold back.

Chibs says nothing – his eyes also diverting to the white linoleum floor for a moment while he thinks. His long hair cascades over his taming sunglasses, falling into his face and eyes – completely covering any discernable emotion.

I've always like Chibs. He's funny and untamed, doing whatever he pleases and living without the pressures of any stigma. He's honest and kind, the one who I apprenticed under when I first started working for T-M even though I didn't need a mentor. We're close like siblings, a bond glued with platonic love and unconditional understanding. From the first day he met me he's had a soft spot for me. I think I remind him of someone he once loved.

After a long, but calm, silence, he steps into the bathroom, closer to me, but he stops just before entering my personal space. He keeps his distance from me and for some reason that bothers me. It makes me uncomfortable, thinking he's wary of me – like he's afraid to get close to someone so damaged.

Chibs licks his dry lips before he speaks about my newest scar, "You can't look at it is as a reminder – not like that anyway." He pauses with a dismissing shake of his head, racking his mind trying to find the right words. And when he finally firmly grasps a cohesive thought he begins again, "Ell, you went through hell and lived. That should be somethin' yer proud of – yer scar is proof that yer one tough bitch," He pauses again, locking his brown eyes with my pale green, "Scars remind us who we are, where we've been and how far we've come. Nothing else." The wise words come straight from his heart.

I swallow the uncomfortable wad of morose emotions building in the back of my throat – an action that hurts. I wish he would come in closer, I desperately yearn for a human connection right now. Just to know I'm not alone.

He remains at arm's length. His words of wisdom will have to suffice. And for the most part they do.

Timidly and unable to hold his gaze, I ask, "How long did it take you – you know, before you were okay with… _them_?"

The corners of his lips pull back into a somber, sad smile and his eyebrows raise. It's obvious that he doesn't really have an answer for me that will satisfy.

"I'll let you know when it happens." He says, regretably honest. If I didn't know Chibs, I would say that he was being rude with his dry words. But I know him, and the tone with which he speaks is about as close to a trembling voice as he'll get.

I wish he had lied.

Because if a tough as shit outlaw can't be okay with some nasty facial scars, how am I supposed to come to terms with the sure-to-be nasty scar on my neck?

How?

I'm only allowed to wallow in hefty uncertainty that I for once do not appreciate for a few seconds.

"Get yer things." Chibs says with a slight jerk of his head to the packed duffel bag on my bed. It's a sudden change of topic, but I'm grateful that he pushes aside our depressing, but needed, conversation and moves on with life. I nod despondently, agreeing. I walk past him to collect my belongings – tightening the loose scarf around my neck as I do so. I'm not ready to proudly wear my battle scar.

At that time I didn't think I ever would be but eventually I was, not too long after Chibs told me his scars no longer bothered him.

That day our strong relationship was cemented by a shared understanding of the pain scars leave behind. It's something I remember fondly.

* * *

><p>Sitting in the T-M owned pick-up truck in the driveway of my house with the bag containing my few possession from the hospital in my lap, I gaze upon my house with wide eyes – unable to will myself into exiting the trucks cab. Unable to work up the nerve to enter my abode for the first time since my loss.<p>

I stare at the dingy yellow vinyl siding, the siding that I promised to power-wash clean for three summers in a row but never did. Suddenly now that's all I can think about. I never kept that promise to clean the houses exterior and a deep twinge of regret makes me briefly nauseous. I didn't keep that promise. Just like I didn't keep the implied promise to Amber that everything would be alright.

My home doesn't look any different. Coming home and finding my house exactly like it should be fills me with this misplaced hope that when I walk through the door, Mom and Amber will be there to greet me.

But I know their dead. I know only reminders of their deaths lie behind the black front door.

My hand has been over the door handle, hesitating, for five minutes while Chibs and I sit in silence. He understands that this is hard for me and I'm grateful that he hasn't rushed me. He just sits quietly beside me, a bent elbow resting on the thin plateau created by the driver's side window being all the way down with his temple resting against a closed fist while he watches the street. He watches the neighbourhood kids play basketball in the street and for a moment I do too.

Only I have to resist an urge to tell them to go back inside – to tell them that this street isn't safe.

Gently, Chibs says, "You have to go in sometime."

"I know."

Five more minutes pass by before I turn to him and ask something that's surprisingly hard for me to request. It makes me feel even weaker than I already do, "Will you come in with me?"

"Aye." There's no hesitation. I'm thankful for that.

I swallow my nerves and pull on the door handle, opening it with a loud creek. The hinges need to be lubricated, but I doubt Chibs needs me to tell him that.

Time to face the music. Time to walk up the pathway to the front door, steps perfectly tuned in time to Chopin's sonata no. 2 - the death march.

I walk through the door and pause in the entry way, frozen as I absorb the familiar sight of my home. Chibs comes in directly behind me and places my bag he insisted on carrying on the burgundy sofa in the living room. I just stand there for a few minutes, gripping my house keys so tight in my hand that the jagged edges cut into the flesh of my palm. Chibs watches me cautiously, unsure of what to do or how I'll eventually react.

My house has never been anything special. The front door leads right into the small living room, cramped with one long burgundy sofa, a matching loveseat, a white coffee table with lattice detailing, a tall book case with more framed pictures than books and a flat screen television on the warm yellow walls across from the sofa. The wall behind the long sofa is only a half wall, used as a shelf for even more photos and useless knickknacks and a few potted plants. Beyond that wall is the large kitchen with outdated appliances and not enough counter space, but more than enough room for the round Birch dining table and four chairs that are near the back door. To the right of the front door is the hallway that leads to the three bedrooms and one bathroom, and as I stand in front of the entry door that's where I look.

I don't even consciously make the decision to bee-line it to Amber's bedroom. Chibs follows quickly on my heels with loud and heavy footsteps accompanied by the clinking of his wallet chain, common sense that I lack telling him this could end unfavorably. I turn the knob and throw open the white door with inlaid panel detailing.

And I immediately collapse into a blubbering pile, knees buckling under my weight as I'm unable to hold back the dizzying rush of anguish as I gaze upon the clean pale pink walls void of her blood that I can see so clearly in my mind. Chibs is there to catch me, his strong arms wrapping quickly under mine, unintentionally hurting my ribs while keeping me from crashing to the floor. I sob uncontrollably, leaning back into his embrace as he slowly brings me down to sit on the dingy beige carpeting that runs throughout the whole house. His legs spread out and I perfectly fit against him as he holds me together – saving me from completely falling apart and turning into a crumbling ruin of a woman.

Chibs says nothing. He makes no hollow predictable promises that _it'll all be okay_ like I told Amber – he doesn't lie to me. He just holds me tight, arms wrapped around my tender core with his soft face squished against the side of my head. He finally provides the human-to-human connection I earlier craved. He grants me the affirmation that I am not alone.

And that's all that I really needed.

* * *

><p>Everything after that is a blur. I didn't need to say it but Chibs knew that I couldn't stay in that house. After my sobbing dulled to silent singular tears he ushered me back outside, helping me into the truck and gently ordering me to stay there and wait, to which I could only offer a solemn nod. He then darts back inside to my house, the black front door audibly slamming shut behind him in his hast to enter. After sobbing for so long I numbly sit in the passenger's seat, unblinkingly staring at the quiet and low-traffic street in front of me. I watched the neighbourhood children play a game of basketball. I watched life continue on despite what has happened.<p>

It bothered me that while my whole world, that while my entire life has been disintegrated theirs continues.

Chibs comes back out quickly, a nylon duffle bag in his hands. He throws it in the back of the truck and climbs into the driver's seat.

"Yer stayin' at the clubhouse and if Clay doesn't like that, you can stay with me." He says firmly and with wholesome moral conviction, starting the old truck that shrieks a loud whine. A vague notion that the timing belt needs to be replaced floats through my mind but is quickly forgotten.

He doesn't look at me. His knuckles are white as he grips the steering wheel tight - I briefly wonder where his leather gloves went.

So quiet that my raspy, hagrid voice is hard for even me to hear over the rock music playing on the radio I say, "Hold on." Before he can drive away.

I offer no other explanation as I quickly hop out of the truck and run back inside. I avoid Amber's room at all costs, going so far as to sheild my eyes with my able hand as I pass by, and go straight for my room. I tug my stash box out from under my bed, a narrow polished maple wood box with an old German prayer etched on the lid and pin it against my chest with my right arm - quickly manuevering to the bathroom.

I hear Chibs come through the front door and promply turn the lock on the knob.

"What are you doin'?" He calls.

"Taking a piss. I'll be out in a minute."

I don't have to pee.

I have to get high. I can't handle _any _of this right now. I may be numb from crying, but I'm not nearly numb enough to be okay.

With the sort of speed that solely comes from doing this too many times before I take my rig out from the stash box and set it up on the counter. I pour a gratuitous amount of pale brown powder into the spoon. I suck up 50 cc's of water from the tap and slowly push it out, over the powder in the spoon. I flick the lighter and hold the metal table spoon over the flame. When I see bubbles appear at the liquid's edge I put it down and place a small piece of cotton in the center of the dark brown liquid. I suck it up with the syringe. I tie my right arm off with the thin black elastic headband I use as a tourniquet, holding it taut with my teeth and pumping my fist to make my veins pop out. I find my favourite vein, the one that runs on the inside of my forearm. I stick the needle into the raised area and pull back blood. I push down on the plunger.

I release the tension of the tourniquet and quickly much needed relief floods my system. I let out a deep breath as warmth spreads from my chest to encompass my whole body.

I clean up - washing away the bubble of blood on my arm and returning my rig to its sacred place is the maple box.

I flush the toilet to make Chibs believe the relief clearly evident on my face is from an empty bladder. But as I walk out of the bathroom, bumping into the door jam as I do so, he realizes what I have done. He looks at me with dark brown eyes full of knowing and, oddly enough, a certain fond understanding that I can't explain. I look away - I stare at a random spot on the far away wall, clutching the box close to my bosom.

"Memento box." I mumble, giving the wooden box a slight jiggle of refference.

But Chibs doesn't say anything.

And that's all that I really need.

* * *

><p>Please review and give me your opinions. :)<p> 


	4. Chapter 4

Enjoy! :)

* * *

><p>It is getting hot, sweat slowly creeping up on my neck and forehead – barely enough to bead but more than enough to be uncomfortable. The white scarf, rather loosely draped around my neck suddenly feels like its choking me, clinging to the every move of my sticky skin and proving it irritate the tender skin only further. It even stings a little bit.<p>

Yet I refuse to take the thin cotton scarf off as I lean against the back of the T-M truck with one knee bent out while the heel of my foot rests on the back tire. I instead fiddle with the thin cotton fabric as I chain smoke my way through a pack of Camel Wides while I wait for Chibs to talk to Clay. They stand just outside of the garage, slightly off to the left and out of ear shot the busy bees working away in the shop. There's a 1999 red Oldsmobile Alero with the hood up inside of the garage. Kozik leans over the engine, listening to the gentle hum of the engine – trying to find a problem. It's faint – very faint, but I can tell from all the way over in the parking lot that it's just a ball bearing getting close to being completely worn down. Kozik gradually gets more and more flustered as he can't decipher what the noise is and no one comes to his aid. Not Tig, not Lowell. They're all busy working on their own projects. Of course, Tig's project is drinking a beer while flipping through a magazine but that's all you can really expect from him.

Clay looks over every now and then, glancing beyond Chibs' shoulder. I catch him every time – the bastard is damn near gawking at me.

I finally have enough of the wayward looks so I give him a curt wave when all I really want to do is flip him off. But I know that's a not a good idea, so I don't.

But I give him the bird in my head and that makes me feel just _a little_ better. I don't know why I have such a hostility towards him, I just do. It's probably something to do with my general disdain for _any _authority figure.

I've made my way through six cigarettes and it seems that Chibs' and Clay's conversation is no closer to over than it was ten minutes ago. So, I flick my cigarette off into the distance and decide to lend Kozik a hand. As I pass by Chibs and Clay their conversation abruptly halts. I keep walking, barely recognizing them in passing as I choose to ignore their lingering gazes. Whatever it is they're talking about, let them keep on talking. I don't have it in me to care one way or another.

Tig notices me walk in first. He's silent for all of two seconds as he takes quick stock of my appearance. I probably look like shit, all sweaty with my hair starting to get frizzy because I can't maneuver the stubborn dirty blonde tresses into a pony-tail. My hair is impossibly thick to the point where I basically can't do anything with it otherwise, unless I want to have the worst white-girl afro ever. Women will tell me all the time "I wish I had hair as thick as yours".

No. No you really don't, random woman on the street whom is touching my hair. It fucking sucks. Sorry – I'm getting off track, forgetting about Tig's lack of concern for however much I may look like a literal hot mess.

"What the hell are you doin' here, Ell?" Tig asks, a thick black eyebrow barely cocked enough to count.

I smile a small smile, all I really have to offer, and thumb over at Kozik who is still buried under the hood – tweaking something with a wrench that is probably doing more damage than good, "Dumbass doesn't know what he's doin'. Figured I'd save the shop from wasting any more money."

Tig snorts, taking a sip from the long-necked beer bottle and speaking rather under his breath into the bottle, "Tell me about it." There's a faint roll of his icy blue eyes to accompany.

Right, Tig. Because you're being so productive with your time, sipping a beer and reading your issue of _Cycle World _like it is a god damn Hustler. In case you can't tell, this is me being bitingly sarcastic.

Lowell is on the other side of the garage, forcing his focus on straightening out a crooked exhaust pipe. He looks up at me for only a quick flash of a second then returns his attention to the pipe, obviously uneasy – unknowing of how to approach me. I understand that and let him be. If I were anyone else, I wouldn't know how to react to me, either. I'm not exactly known for being touchy-feely or welcoming of concern.

Kozik looks up from the car, hearing my changed and now very distinctive voice. I'm pretty sure he was my guard more than once in the hospital – not that my memories are worth much, but when he sees me it is like he sees me for the first time. He's all hesitant and unsure and it's clearly written on his face. His eyes get wide and he nervously runs a large calloused hand through his unkempt blond hair – unintentionally giving himself a skunk stripe of chalky black grease.

"Hey there, Ell." He says, trying to be casual.

"Hey." I give him the same small smile I gave Tig and he relaxes.

Some conversations are simple like that. With no more than four words you can speak a mouthful. He asks me how I'm doing, tells me he's worried and that he is glad I have been released and seem to be in good health. I tell him that I'm glad to be back and ask him not to treat me like a china doll.

"So, what's this baby in for?" I ask, gently patting the red roof of the Alero.

Kozik's smooth brow furrows, lips pressing together - he's confused and not happy about it. He holds this expression as he looks from me to the engine and back again, "I don't have a damn clue. The owner brought it in, saying it was handling a little funny and making some noises. But I don't see anything wrong. It didn't spit out a code or nothin' when I hooked it up, either."

"That's because the ball bearings are just starting to go. Owner must have freakin' ESP to be able to sense that." I say, nonchalantly checking out my nails while leaning against the front quarter panel.

"Then just how the fuck do you know it's the bearings?" Kozik asks. He sounds angry, but I know he's really not. This is our thing - we joke around and play pranks on each other. We pretend to fight when we're not mad.

We're friends.

I just look at him, expression completely dry as I light a cigarette. It's a running joke around the shop that I must be part werewolf. Not because I'm nocturnal and not because once a month I turn into some sort of über bitch - but because my hearing is freakishly good.

Kozik's face washes over with realization, "Right, Miss. Superhuman hearing over here." He jokes, nudging me with his elbow.

I smile. It is a little bigger and a little truer. _Just a little._

"Give 'em a check." I say, referring to the ball bearings.

Kozik gives a playful wave of dismissal, "Yeah, yeah, yeah."

I take a glance around the shop as Kozik ducks into the back room – catching Lowell give me another flashing glance. Only this time he doesn't return his attention to the pipe held tight to the work table by two grips. He walks on over.

"Hey there, Lowell. How's things?" I greet. I can't say Lowell and I have ever been particularly close or friendly, but we work together and get along well in that regard. He's a damn good mechanic and I have nothing more to say about that.

"Good," He nervously wipes his hands on his stained blue jean, "How about you? You know, since…" He doesn't have to finish his sentence and I'm glad he doesn't.

It's weird. I must have been asked that question a hundred times and always struggle to find an answer. _How are you doing?_ It seems simple enough to answer, but it really isn't. It's not easy because I'm not doing well, but I know that none of them want to hear the truth. None of them want to listen to me talk about my woes.

It's hard to lie all the time.

"Alright." I lie, trying to be convincing just like all the other times.

"Leave her alone, Lowell!" Tig hollers from across the way, glaring at the younger mechanic and successfully scaring him.

I roll my eyes, "Tig, it's fine – _really_."

Tig, unconvinced, slowly returns back to his magazine – one eye staying trained on Lowell and myself in a distinctively chameleon sense.

A nervous Lowell is looking at my neck. Staring – gawking, burning a hole into the already destroyed flesh.

"The doctors say the cut is healing well." I say, ruder than I meant it to sound. I was just trying to get him to stop looking, but I end up scaring twitchy little Lowell. Lowell's eyes snap up, deeply embarrassed by his gawking as if he were caught staring at my breasts. Which, to be completely honest, I would prefer by a long shot. At least then I wouldn't feel so god damn disfigured.

Lowell looks down at the concrete floor speckled with oil and a few stains that look remarkably similar to blood – which wouldn't be all that uncommon in a garage with sharp metal, but in an outlaw – pardon me, _Harley Enthusiast_ owned auto shop, it's rather disturbing. But I'm long since used to finding discouraging stains around here. All I ever do is go looking for the cleaner. I never bother to think twice about any white, red or other coloured stain that seemingly randomly appears out of thin air, as if placed there by a higher being.

"I'm glad you're okay, Ellie," Lowell says breathily, "I was real worried about you after I heard about what happened." He nervously scratches at the back of his head the entire time.

Another small smile meant to comfort someone other than myself. A little less real. A little more routine and forced.

A little more dishonest but also a little more true. I didn't expect Lowell to be worried about me and it is not comforting, yet something similar, to know that he cares about me enough to be concerned. Even though I don't generally like being shown concern.

"Thanks." The smoldering cigarette bobs between my clenched lips the entire time. A bit of smoke wafts up and gets in my eye, stinging like a bitch. I cuss under my breath then without thinking about it I try to move my left arm to grab the cigarette from between my lips. This results in a sharp jolt of pain that works up my arm, through my neck and down my spine and a fierce grimace.

"Damn. How broken is it?" Lowell asks, face cringed to almost match mine as he feels a phantom pain.

I shrug, wince not completely gone from my round face, "It was a clean break in my humerus and it's just about healed. I have an appointment in two days to get the cast off but I'm thinking I'm just gonna cut it off myself later, damn thing's gettin' in the way of _everything._" I grumble, humorous and angry all at once.

Lowell gets ready to say something but stops – eyes focused just beyond my shoulder. I turn around slowly, none too surprised to see Chibs standing behind me. He doesn't look happy - almost like he just drank spoiled milk.

_Yes?_ I ask silently with a blonde eyebrow raised.

"Clay wants to talk to you." He says.

I look outside, leaning my weight onto one foot so I can see beyond a looming Chibs. Clay is no longer standing by the office door – he's now sitting with knees spread wide on one of the picnic tables by the Clubhouse entry.

"Is this gonna be a good talk or a bad talk?" I warily ask.

Chibs shrugs, "He has some conditions for you if you want to stay here."

My shoulders slump low, dread filling my chest cavity. Definitely a bad talk.

I turn back around to say a quick _see you later _to Lowell but he's already gone, back to straightening out the pipe. Lowell has worked here for years but he's still uneasy around some of the Sons. I don't understand it, then again I suppose I don't have to. It's his issue and whatever it is, it's not for me to judge someone over being lastingly wary of a bunch of men with quite the defined vicious streak. Yeah – I may not be privy to club business but it's not exactly a secret.

Besides, what the Sons do in secret doesn't bother me. It never has and it never will. Blame all the violence on TV if it makes you feel any better about my desensitization to violence.

I slowly approach Clay alone – Chibs quickly went off into the clubhouse, muttering something about needing a drink and nothing more.

Clay looks up at me, squinting against the California sun that burns bright in a clear blue sky, "Take a seat." He pats the position on the bench next to him.

I sit and try to be patient, try not to jump to conclusions. I try to relax and get comfortable, sitting on the hard wood - but it doesn't go so well. Thankfully, Clay has always been the type to get right down to business.

"Your father was one of the best brothers in our history – best mechanic I've ever seen and one hell of tricky bastard," He starts, eyes glazed over with some fond memory and a light smile pulling up his lips. I realize maybe I was wrong about this conversation being less than favourable. I always like Clay and Piney's stories about Chico, "The day he found out your mom was havin' a girl was the only day I had ever seen that man scared. He always knew that you were going to be trouble – even said that he knew he was going to have to knock some serious skulls over you." He takes a pause, filling the silence by lighting a cigar and I appreciate the break. I didn't know that about Chico – that he was worried about having to deal with all the trials and tribulations of having a daughter. No matter how many times Clay and Piney have recounted their fondest memories of him to me, Chico has never seemed human. He is always portrayed on this high pedestal, a dead Sons of Anarchy legend of superhuman proportions. It may not be much, but it matters a great deal to hear of him in a different light. It matters to me to for once hear about him like a father versus a badass and nothing more. "Ellie, the day I met you I could tell you are a smart, tough girl and when I found out you were Mary's kid, the daughter Chico never got to hold, I knew you were gonna be trouble... just like Chico." He stops again, chuckling lightly. He takes a swirling puff from his cigar.

I wonder where this story is going – what exactly are the "conditions" that I have to abide by to stay at the Clubhouse until I'm able to return home, though I doubt that day will ever come.

"I loved your father and I know I'm not exactly the most affectionate man, but you matter to me and to this club. So, I promise you -" He looks me right in the eye, "that we will get the bastards who did this to you," I have never heard someone speak with so much spite to this very day, "But you've got to do something for me in return." His words hang suspended in the air like the heavy cigar smoke that he blows out through his wide nostrils.

Quietly, I ask, "What?"

"You can't be doing the drugs anymore. You get clean while you stay at the Clubhouse and then we'll make sure they pay." He may of posed it as an if-and-then statement, but it's rather clear that the only routes of action are his way or no way at all.

I look away, off to some random spot in the parking lot – just anywhere that isn't Clay. I try to not show how agitated I am by his words. I've never been one to appreciate people telling me what to do, and the fact that Clay is who is he is makes no difference. This headstrong, I-can-do-it-myself approach of the world is held very dear to me. It's practically the pinnacle of my personality.

And it has been known that forcibly telling me what to do results in me doing the exact opposite. It's not a conscious choice – it just always works out that way.

"_Ellie."_ Clay urges sternly.

"Yeah – fine. I'll stop the hard drugs, but if you think you're getting me to give up on the grass, you're severely mistaken, Old Man." I try and be playful with my joking to cover up how much I don't want to do what he's demanding of me.

Clay smirks, cigar clamped tight between his yellowing teeth, "That's all I ask."

I stand to leave, pushing myself up off the picnic table with aid of my right arm.

"And one more thing," Clay starts. I resist the urge to not roll my eyes and mutter hasty insults at the aging Sons of Anarchy President. This time his words are lighter, spoken with a smile and prove to put me at temporary ease, "I want you back to work a-sap. No one else can do what you do with that freaky hearing of yours. The garage has been bleeding money since you left." There's no way he's being honest because there's no way I'm _that _important. But he says this because in his own way, those prideful comforting words are the equivalent of a bear hug.

I smile. It's not wide, but it is honest and proud, "As soon as this thing is off," I lift my left arm, gesturing to the neon purple cast, "I'm back at work."

Clay stands up, claps a supportive hand over my shoulder. Completely by primordial reaction, I dart away, leaving Clay clearly regretting the action but not nearly the type to apologize.

Aversion to physical contact. That's something the psychiatrist told me to expect – the old hag who came into my room to speak with me even though I told the doctors I didn't want to talk to anyone. The mandatory head-shrinker with cat-eye glasses and graying hair who told me that there's no need to feel ashamed – that my rape wasn't my fault. I know all that – I know what happened wasn't my fault but that doesn't matter. Amber is still dead. Mom is still dead. And the sick fucks whose hands they died at still walk free. To me, my rape and near-fatal injury pale in comparison. To me, the subject of the nightly nightmares I've been having barely even counts. After all, at least I'm alive. I _should _be thankful for that and nothing else.

The shrink told me to expect unease around people for a while. It doesn't hit me until this moment but not once in the hospital had anyone offered a hug or even a gentle holding of my hand to bring comfort. I don't know why, but that bothers me more than the concerned stare Clay gives me or the sudden, horrifying realization that maybe I'm not okay – not even in the slightest of lying senses that I tell myself I am.

Without saying another word I walk into the clubhouse, intending to find Chibs and join him for that drink he so readily abandoned me for.

My opinion of Clay started to change that day. If it was for better or worse, I don't think I could tell you because I still don't have a solid lock on how I feel about him – whether he's malevolent or benevolent. My distrust of him has nothing to do with liking him or hating him, I have a general distrust of anyone, especially those in a position of power because power thirsts for only more power.

What I can say is this: That day Clay proved himself to be someone capable of caring with words of demand that made me resent him just a little more.

Therein lies my debate. Is Clay malevolent or benevolent?

I don't think anyone knows. Even Clay.

* * *

><p>It starts as a passing idea, something thought in bitter hast as I dwell over my reaction that knocked me on my ass when I walked into Amber's room.<p>

_Maybe it'd just be better to burn my fucking house down. That way there I won't _ever _have to go back._

It starts as nothing important but it festers like an infected wound in my mind throughout the night. And with every drink that I consume it starts to sound better and better as any rational line of thinking goes further and further away from my conscious. With my last bit of rationality swirling around the drain, the idea sounds like a burst of genius, something that Einstein himself would marvel in awe at.

I find the only sober person in the Clubhouse, Kozik, and ask him to give me a ride to my house so I can collect some more things. I don't tell him what I plan on doing. I don't tell him I plan on taking the gas cans in the garage and walking around my house – pouring every last bit of liquid fuel over every ruined memory.

That's probably why he agrees. That and the pout I put into my full lips when he first declines to drive me to the outskirts of Charming at one in the morning.

I don't think about it anymore than that, a fleeting idea of genius, as I go into the garage and grab the two five-gallon bright red plastic containers. I barely even remember it. I just walked through the house with the canister tipped, gasoline sploshing onto the carpet behind me. I avoid Amber's room, but I open the door and soak the carpet in the hallway with ample fuel. I try not to stare and succeed.

I make sure to douce everything with gasoline. I don't want any piece of this god foresaken house surviving. When I'm done, I leave the empty containers in the middle of the living room. Numbly going through the final motions, I light a cigarette and stick it in a book of matches, placing it too in the middle of the room just beside the containers.

And then I begin walk away, stopping just as my hand wraps around the doorknob. I was so caught up in the whirlwind of desiring destruction that I almost forgot to grab a few choice photographs from the bookshelf. A few memories I can bear to part with.

Everything else I want to burn to ash. I want no trace left behind of my life that once was.

It's gone - they're gone, so what's the use in pretending?

I pick up three photographs, my favourite three, and cradle them in my arm. Then I walk away for good. I walk out the door, locking the knob purely out of habit on my way out. I take no longing last glance. I set up a precarious line of dominos to light up my house in the best of sense, knocking the down the first domino with a breath of flame, and I never look back. I never regret the actions taken. Not once.

The house has still not caught fire by the time I reach Kozik in the truck. Mutely, I place the three precious photographs in the backseat of the truck then settle comfortably into the passenger's seat.

Kozik looks at me, blue eyes wondering what I did. Wondering why I smell like gasoline but not quite wanting to ask.

"Drive." I say. My raspy voice sounds dead yet full of fire, an odd combination by even my consideration. Dead like my mother. Dead like my sister.

Fiery like me, burning for more destruction and pay back; full of flame as the house I once called home will soon be.

Kozik turns the ignition key and the truck growls to life. I again hear the noise of the timing belt winding too fast though I again say nothing as we drive away into the night.

Just as we turn off of Blue Bird Street and onto the main road, I see an orange glow appear in the side-view mirror. It grows quickly, a large flash of flame errupting over the roofs of my once upon a time neighbours.

Kozik notices the flames then. Slowing his driving, he feverishly looks between the rear-view mirror and myself.

"Did you just-"

"Yup." I say, a wide smile stretching my lips apart for the first time in a month. I smile the whole way back to the Sons of Anarchy compound, my temple resting against the window as I fight to maintain a view of the quickly growing glow in the mirror. For all the smiles that I smiled earlier, there has never been one as wide or true as the one that graced my face right then. And in many ways, I haven't smiled like that since then. I was satisfied then, bursting with jubilation that I would never again have to face any horrible reminder - or so I thought.

There has truly never been a more cathartic act of arson in all of recorded history. Ever.

* * *

><p><em>"Arson, after all, is an artificial crime. A large number of houses deserve to be burnt."<em> - HG Wells.

* * *

><p>Please review. :)<p> 


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5.

Enjoy :)

* * *

><p>Having just finished reading <em>Cat's Cradle<em> by Kurt Vonnegut_, _Ellie pauses as she flips to the beginning of the novel - to the very first page that simply states

"Nothing in this book is true."

Her mind marvels at how the timeless story twists and turns together, even after reading it for what has to be the tenth time in the past year. She takes off her thin-rimmed black glass, chewing lightly on an end already littered with faint teeth marks as she closes the book then carelessly tosses the old book with yellowed pages onto the empty spot besides seat on the sofa.

She smirks faintly, reminiscing about her love for those simple words. _Nothing in this book is true._ Well, that is a riddeling puzzle. If nothing in this book is true then that in fact means that the opening statement, _Nothing in this book is true_ is a lie. Therefore, everything in the book is true. But then that would also be a lie, because then the opening statement would again be false.

It is a literary ambigram.

How fantastic.

If she were ever to write a story, that's how she would do it.

* * *

><p>Though Kozik is silent during the entire fifteen-minute ride back to the Sons of Anarchy clubhouse he speaks a grand monologue with body language and sideways glances as we drive through the dead blackness that befalls Charming. With every passing moment I can sense a deepening rift, something more than the center console wedging between myself and him. While this distance growing between us is something I can feel it is not something I can understand no matter how hard I try to comprehend. I am unable to decipher where his abrupt unease comes from or why Kozik does not say a word even when he rams the sticky shifter into park upon reaching our early morning destination. He and I ferment in silence for a brief moment, sitting outside in the truck with no light other than the far away street lamps beyond the property line before I speak up.<p>

I turn in the seat so my back is against the door and I fully face the blond man I consider one of my best friends, "What crawled up your ass?"

Kozik sighs shallowly, eyelid curtains closing over his bright blue eyes as he shakes his head from side-to-side. What he's denying, I don't know because he has no words to offer me. He remains silent even after his eyes slowly reopen, blues suddenly upon me with troubling rue; he's censuring me and my actions.

I don't like silence. Never have, never will. Especially silence such as this one, heavily bogged down with despair and concern, so carefully wrapped up with a glistening bow of regret.

Silence is not Kozik's norm and perhaps that is why it bothers me so much more. Either that or it is the look he gives me, as if I am nothing but an albatross around his neck, which unsettles me so much. One of the reasons why I like Kozik so much is that he does not care about where someone has come from or what they've been through. With a past of his own he prefers to forget, he is a person solely focused on the present, only concerned with what is truly inside someone. It is not like him to be so judging.

"I needed to burn that house down to the foundation," I refuse to even call it my home anymore, "So what_ever_ your problem is with that – get the fuck over it." I mutter under my breath then get out of the truck, popping the passenger's seat up so I can get the framed photographs of my family from the back. I carefully pick up the frozen joyous memories, pinning them against my chest with my right forearm. As I close the passenger's side door, my weak hold on the pictures falters. I fumble to regain a solid grasp, but only make it worse, hurling them at the ground instead of saving them from crashing against it.

A shatter of glass is all I hear as they crash against the unforgiving asphalt beneath my feet.

I stare at the broken frames below, frozen for some unknown reason as I see the three memories I wanted so badly to preserve maimed. While the destruction of the last possessions I have from my old life may only be temporary and easily reversed, in this very moment they are wholly ruined.

The driver's side door creaks open as Kozik exits the truck. He slams the door behind him so hard that the entire truck rocks.

I kneel down on my haunches, wiping away the broken glass over the frozen faces of my mother, Amber and myself with the side of my palm. While clearing away the shattered glass, the sharp edge of a particularly large shard cuts across my hand when it refuses to lift over the shallow lip of the wooden frame. It cuts me deep.

I inwardly hiss, pulling my hand back to check out the damage done. A long slice runs from the back of my hand, wrapping around the side and into my palm. Blood quickly wells up in the jagged cut with a thick over-lay of now dead skin, warm liquid dripping down onto the ground. I was so concerned with investigating my newest injury that I didn't realize I was holding my hand right over the photographs.

In horror, I look down as my blood falls onto my absolute favourite memory of the three – a photograph taken only two weeks ago by one of my mother's friends, Derek, in which the three of us sit on the steps in front of our house. In the picture, the sun is shining bright upon all of our smiling faces, making them glow – my hands are black with grease and oil – a bit smeared on my cheek and forehead. I was working Derek's car, helping him change the fuel pump. It was a fucking hard job to do, having to completely take off the bed of his truck. Why we took the picture, I can't even remember now. Something about Mom loving the way that in my torn jeans and stained shirt, all black from grease and shit, I was looked like a raggamuffin – her words, not mine.

My blood now cascades down over the faces of my mother, Amber and I.

Frantically, I pick up the picture and try to wipe the blood away with the bottom of my shirt but only succeed in ruining the memory even further – smearing blood all over when what I meant to do was clear. After feverishly trying to clear away the blood for far too long, completely ignoring the stinging pain in my hand and the frantic anxiety building in my chest I abruptly stop. My sage green eyes somewhat numbly take in the sight of the defiled memory – the few things I wanted to save, I have ruined.

The conclusion that in the process of trying to move on I have destroyed _everything_ sucker-punches me with pro-heavy weight force. However, instead of feeling even more despair, a distinct numbness creeps upon me and gradually builds like a brick wall. With every passing moment I become more closed off; with each brick placed I slowly build an impenetrable barrier between me and my emotions; I cordon myself off from myself.

Kozik kneels down in front of me, resuming the clearing of broken glass that I have abandoned. He picks up the largest of the shards with two nimble fingers, carefully placing the broken pieces in his open palm so he may safely dispose of them.

"Stop." I say, despondent.

Kozik looks up, the glass in his hand reflecting a bit of light that seeps into the parking lot from the street. His brow wrinkles with a lack of understanding, "What?"

I force myself to fully accept the numbness that has grown inside of me simply because it would simply be too hard to do anything but, "Just stop cleaning… It's all fucked to shit, anyway." Raspy and distant, my voice is not quite loud enough to be considered a whisper. It's all fucked to shit, indeed.

I stand up, carelessly letting the blood-stained picture fall from my fingers and assault the pavement for the second time in less than five minutes. I blink with heavy eyelids, wanting to look back at the crime scene behind me but refusing to do so as I force my sights on the clubhouse door. I walk away, leaving a sporadic trail of blood drops behind me.

Kozik stays behind, continuing to pick up more shards - trying to preserve the things I failed to.

He shouldn't have just let me walk away because I walked straight into the spare dormitory in the back, the room I'm currently occupying, and I proceed to try and get as high as I have ever been.

I wasn't doing it purposefully to say fuck you to Clay, and at the time I told myself just that. But looking back now, I realize there was definitely a faint call of "Fuck you, Clay." From the little voice inside my head as I pushed down on the syringe plunger.

* * *

><p>This part is true. My mother used to tell me this narrative over and over. A wide grin upon her lips that brightened her entire face each and every single time she would tell me this truth: When I was three years old, I was sitting in the backseat of her old Deville – an early 70's model with a transmission on the verge of exploding and cracking blue vinyl seats. I was in in booster seat, sandwiched between my two older cousins from Illinois, Lloyd and Marissa. My mother was driving, seven weeks pregnant with Amber.<p>

I only realize now that this must have happened when Mom packed up the car and we drove to Illinois after she had a fall-out with her then-boyfriend. I went to preschool there, in Illinois, so it must have been at least a year we lived in a Detroit satellite. I don't remember much of that, except for when a young boy in my class kicked sand in my eyes and I hit him over the head with a Tonka Truck. My mom used to tell that story, too. But she was never happy when she told it.

On this day, during this particular tale I wish to tell like my mother did, I was in the car, bouncing around on the uneven roads. My mother was asking my cousins what they wanted to be when they grew up. Lloyd wanted to be a fireman. Marissa wanted to be a veterinarian. Neither of them ended up that way.

Then, grin on her oval face Mom looked back at me and asked me what I wanted to be when I was a grown up.

Giggling, I responded, "I wanna be a monstah!"

At three years old it was my goal in life to be a monster**.** Fuck being afraid of the boogey man, I wanted to meet him and get his autograph – give him an interview, find out what it's like to be a real monster; maybe even ask if I could be his apprentice.

My mother always thought the story was funny, perhaps for the pure absurdity of it. I used to think it was funny, too because while other girls my age wanted to be ballerinas or veterinarians, I wanted to be something people feared.

I'm sure Ma never thought that my three-year-old aspirations would come to full fruition.

Well, Ma… It's come true.

Almost twenty years later, I guess I finally become what I long ago aspired to be.

Transfixed, I sit at the bar in the clubhouse, my head tilted back as I look at the news reel that plays on the television.

There's a house –_ my _house, burned down, a worthless pile of black charred pieces among bright green grass in the background as a young brunette newscaster speaks into the camera – looking at me through the television screen.

She talks about what happened. With a faint accent from somewhere in the south, she explains how suspected arson brought down my old domicile; how the fire spread to a neighbour's house. There was a family inside, the Hoenikker family. A middle-aged couple with three young kids who moved into the white ranch-style house five years ago. One of their kids, their oldest boy was playing basketball in the street in the dawn of my deed. I watched him dribble the ball around, laughing with his friends and miss the basket more than once but not care at all. He was having fun in that moment and that was all that counted.

That same kid, whose face I wish I could remember, is now dead. Mrs. Hoenikker and two of the children got out safely. Mr. Hoenikker ran back into their home to retrieve their eldest son. And that was when the propane tank just outside their house, even closer to the flames I set inside the shell of what was once my home - when Mr. Hoenikker tried to save his oldest boy was when their propane tank exploded. Their house was quickly engulfed in flames.

They didn't make it out alive.

I killed two innocent people. And the worst part is - I don't feel guilty. I feel a sense of remorse over their deaths but not a single bit of guilt. It was a horrible accident that I started. I didn't hold a gun to someone's head and pull the trigger. It's not murder.

I certaintly can't be human - not for having so much apathy towards knocking down the fiery fatal dominos I did.

I'm a monster.

My lips are slightly parted whilst the rest of my face remains somewhat numbed to all the murderous information sinking in.

Suddenly coming up beside me, noticing how I watch the television, I hear someone come up beside me and turn to see Chibs leaning against the bar in the brief second before he sits in a stool beside mine; his brown eyes switching from the television screen to myself. He gets ready to say something but stops. He doesn't know what to say.

I speak with a finger pointing at an upwards angle behind me, towards the television, "I set that place on fire last night." The dry, somewhat sarcastic sounding hollowness of my raspy voice from last night has not dissipated, rather it has intensified.

Both of Chibs' brows shoot up his forehead in surprise but he doesn't say anything – he just shifts his eyes from me to the television screen hanging from the ceiling over the bar.

I look back to the flat screen. The television background crisply displayed in HD is no longer my destruction. It is a family picture of the Hoenikker's.

I stare upon their face, focusing on the oldest boy with black hair who looks just like his father. I stare and I stare.

I pray a silent prayer in my head to a God I don't believe in. I don't even know what I'm praying for, I just pray for Him to hear me; wondering if God would even listen to the prayers of monsters such as I.

"_ELLIE_, get in here now!" I hear Clay shout from behind. I twist my torso around as I sit on the stool, taking a look behind me. Clay stands in the doorway to the Chapel, broad brow set heavy and his lips sneering like a vicious predator about to pounce. Just behind him I can see Kozik seated at the table, regretfully looking down as he brushes a calming his palm over the back of his blond hair.

I turn and look at Chibs besides me - hoping for some kind of signal that this isn't as serious as it seems; that this is a just another nightmare, I should wake up soon; I want him to tell me that I am not a monster.

But his quiet brown eyes and the frown upon his lips confirm all my worst fears; I killed two people, if even by accident. I hesitantly stand up from my stool at the bar. Chibs gives me a quick, supportive pat on the back that I don't shy away from before I walk away. Clay glares at me the whole time; Kozik won't even look up from the table.

Walking towards the menacing grey-haired President of the Sons looming in the doorway, I can hear my mother's words echoing in my head as she recites the story to me again, her light voice smiling just as I remember it – _"You looked up at me and said 'I wanna be a monstah, mumma!'. It was the cutest thing I've ever seen!"_

Well, what about now, mother?

I'm a fucking monster, about to get chastised like a god damn child by a hypocritical man whom I am sure has taken far more than two lives. How cute is your little girl now?

* * *

><p>Clay sits at the head of the redwood table, hands folded out in front of him, knuckles white as he wrings his arthritic mitts. He's hunched over, face downcast but I can see his expression all the same.<p>

He's pissed.

And Clay pissed is well… It's not a pretty sight. His face gets all wrinkly and tense – a vein in his forehead sometimes throbs. I bet the look he has when he's pissed and when he takes a shit are the same damn thing.

"What were you thinking?" He asks lowly, bitter words gaining a deep vibrato from the anger and disapproval gripping tight his chest.

I shrug lethargically with one shoulder, "I wasn't."

Clay pauses, face ugly. It seems just about any other answer he had been prepared for _but_ my admission of intellectual negligence.

"So, what – you just decided out of the fucking blue that you were going to set your house on fire?" It's obviously meant to be rhetorical.

Unfortunately, he hits the situation like a nail on the head.

"Yup."

The same pause and the same ugly face. He must not be used to people being so forth-coming.

He glares at me with steely blue eyes that send a shiver up my spine, "You're a fucking idiot."

"Fuck you," I snap immediately, forgetting that who this man is sitting beside me, "I had to fucking do it. I'm sorry those other people got hurt but -"

"_Two _people, Ell! Two fucking people were killed and that's going to get all the law around here involved! We can't have any more eyes on us than we already do, and here you fuckin' go draggin' the fuckin' Sons into a double-murder!" Clay shouts back, pounding the side of his fist against the table out of irate frustration. He gives a menacing wayward look at Kozik, holding him responsible for this mess even though he was nothing but an unwilling get-away driver.

There seems to be a connection between how angry Clay is and how often he swears. Having never been on the receiving end of such a brutal verbal assault from the grey-haired President, I find his extravagant use of the word 'fuck' slightly hilarious. Every time he cusses, too, a little piece of spittle comes flying out.

He's fucking pissed beyond all hell and I probably don't have a snowballs chance of getting away without some serious reprimand.

But I don't care. Let him do whatever he fucking wants because it felt too damn good to light that place up. So let him scream, let him shout, let him call me any nasty name in the book because I don't give a flying rat's ass.

And those ideals must show, because Clay suddenly gets exponentially more irate.

I have never seen someone so red before in all my life.

"You want us to get the sons of bitches who killed your family and gave you that pretty little necklace," He points a finger at my scarf-covered neck, "but you ain't exactly walkin' the line here, Ell. The first night I open up the doors of my clubhouse to you, you go and kill two fucking people. You need to get your head straight and cut this shit out – the drugs, the stupid fucking impulses – _all of it_! If you so much as have a fucking impulse to scratch your nose you fucking ask me first, got it?" He growls.

I bite my tongue.

Literally.

I clamp down hard on the muscle in my mouth to retain the noxious words I wish to spew forth.

He's dangling the one thing that matters to me over my head, forcing me to do as he says or I will not get the one thing I desire.

No matter how much I may have been attempting to distance myself from reality, my thirst for retribution has never escaped my mind.

I manage a stiff nod of detest, agreeing to Clay's demands.

He relaxes – but just slightly slow. His face goes from red to pink.

"We'll take care of any heat from the sheriff best we can, but he's gonna want to talk to you about this… Seeing as it's your house-"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll fucking say I was here the whole night and don't know a God damned thing and everyone else will corroborate... Can I go now?" I snap.

Clay's grey stubble covered upper lips curls. His eye twitches a little.

"Get the fuck out of my sight."

* * *

><p><span>Review<span>(s): _n._ Something that gives me great pleasure and makes writing worthwhile.

Please review :)

PS: Realize the connection between Ellie's favourite line in Cat's Cradle and the beginning of this story? ;)


	6. Chapter 6

first of all, THANK YOU FOR READING!

**(VERY) Important Author's Note:** As you know, these stories are my therapy... Well, my life has officially gone down the shitter. My mother has a rare form of MS and I dropped out of college to care for her. Then I got diagnozed with schitzophrenia - an issue I wish to discuss at a later date because the stigma around it that we're all dangerous is such bullshit. But yaaaay! Charlie's life blows! I'll stop. Basic point, my creativity has plummeted. I don't know when or if any of my other projects will be updated.

But hey - I have this! It's a crappy 800 worded passage that really has no right being anywhere because it's a first draft and I didn't proof read. But it's here. And I updated. And hopefully I'll update some more, my other stories included.

* * *

><p>I don't remember much about detoxing except for a few select instances.<p>

The withdrawals started like this; My legs don't feel right, they felt alien, and no matter how I moved them they never got comfortable. Then I was anxious, pacing around the clubhouse, chewing my thumbnail. Then I got cold for all of five minutes before I felt such a horrific need to vomit that I ran faster than an Olympian hopeful for the bathroom.

Chibs was there soon after, leaning against the frame of a door I couldn't of been bothered to close before my retching started.

"You just have'ta wait it out." He says calmly, knowingly.

And I do. I sit there for an hour, my arms wrapped around the dirty toilet basin while I threw up things I ate four years ago. I wait it out and finally it dies down – more likely though, I run out of stomach acid to deposit.

He hands me a towel and I take it gratefully. I don't wipe my mouth, I use it to absorb the thick layer of sweat on my face. Then suddenly I'm so hot that it feels like I'm boiling. I strip off my shirt then use it to soak up more sweat that has accumulated on my face.

It isn't until I notice Chibs staring that I realize when I took off my shirt, my scarf came with it. My neck is bare.

My scar is visible.

But I can't be bothered to care, not when my body is being cooked from the inside out.

I stay in the bathroom until every muscle in my body begins to cramp. Chibs has to help me to my bed where I promptly curl up into the fetal position and begin to spout spit-laden obscenities like a woman demonically possessed.

Chibs sits in a chair by the door with a bent leg resting on a knee. He tells everyone else to go away.

When I jump up from the bed and try to fight my way past Chibs to go score any way I know how, he wrestles me back down. He keeps me pinned to the bed until I stop thrashing.

He sits back in his chair.

I pass out not too long after that.

When I wake up, Chibs is sitting by the door.

I tell him that I want to die. I don't think I've ever been more honest in my entire life.

He tells me to suck it up, to wait it through.

"Please, Chibs. I can't take this. I need something. I need something bad, I'll do anything if you just give me a shot." Weeping and with my whole body on fire, I manage to sit up in the bed.

He doesn't respond.

"Please. I'll do _anything._"

He doesn't respond. He doesn't even blink.

I crawl out of bed over to him. I kneel in front of him with my hands on his spread knees.

"_Anything."_ I repeat.

He stares down at me with those brown eyes of his and leans in closer. For a split second my heart jumps with joy, thinking that he's going to take me up on my insinuated offer.

His face is close to mine, his eyes set hard on mine. For a moment there's silence and in that moment I move my hands to his belt buckle. Quickly, however, he pushes them away.

Then, his rough hands are cupping my sticky face.

"You need to ride this out, sweetheart." I can feel his breath on the tip of my nose.

"I can't."

One finger, just one gentle tip of his finger that I can barely feel touches the healed gash on my neck, "If you survived this, then you're strong enough to make it through the next few days. All you have to do is wait it out."

Then there's another finger on my neck, just one more – just enough to run its length and inspect is depravity.

"I should've died that night." I say so quiet that I almost don't even hear myself.

"But you didn't." His fingers are gone, but his eyes demand my attention. "El, you're going to make it through this and then you're going to kill those basterds who raped and slaughtered you and your family." He says it blunt to shock me and it works. His words make me recoil, make me fall back onto the floor. They make me quiver and almost cry.

But he says nothing else – not even as I crawl back into bed and cry from the pain into a pillow. He really doesn't need to say anything else, anyway. He's already said the one thing I needed to hear. He's already said the words that keep me sane for the next two days.

* * *

><p><em>"Here I am trying to live, or rather, I am trying to teach death within me how to live."<em>

_- John Cocteau_

* * *

><p>Thanks for reading! :)<p> 


End file.
